


Gravity

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, gay married in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3938962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jamie gets his first view of earth from space and learns what 'gravity' is. Or, the Doctor turns Jamie's world upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

There was a chill in the air when Jamie stepped out of the TARDIS. Not the chill of a cold day; more like a room that had been shut up for the winter, or a cold cellar. There was a smell, a sharp, clean smell that he could only compare to icy water, and under that a faint mustiness. His gut said _underground_. His head said _outer space_. The thought came unbidden, and he was startled by the ease of it, by the way he could tell without really thinking. There was an odd quality to this new place, an off-kilter sensation, a lightness that had told him where he was before he’d consciously registered it.

The TARDIS door creaked and Ben walked out behind him, shoving him further into the room. It was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, the walls lined with pitch-dark windows. It was the middle of the night; it was always the middle of the night, in space. “Some sort of space station, d’you reckon?” Ben was saying over his shoulder.

“It’s a bit dingy,” said Polly, stepping down beside him. Her hair swished as she looked up and down the chamber. It stretched a long way to their left, a little way to their right. There were doorways at either end, and above the doorways signs with writing and arrows pointing anywhichway. She moved out of the way to let the Doctor past.

“No no, not like a space station,” said the Doctor. He turned about-face and began to lock up the TARDIS. “More of a, ah, satellite, I think.”

“It’s an awfully big satellite,” said Polly, not sounding convinced, but sounding as if she knew what a satellite was, so Jamie didn’t ask.

“Well, an observation point.” The Doctor went to one of the dark windows and poked at it. It made a dull noise, not like glass at all. He began to inspect the sides of it, as if he was looking for the catch.

“Military?” said Ben.

“Possibly, possibly,” said the Doctor, still searching.

“It is safe, isn’t it?” said Polly, uncertain.

“Oh, quite safe,” said the Doctor. “It’s – aha!” He found what he was looking for; a flat red panel beside the window which stood out so starkly that Jamie was amazed it had taken him so long to find it.

At his touch, every window along the chamber lit up with a flare of sound and colour that took Ben and Polly off guard and gave Jamie quite a start. They weren’t windows, he realised. They were something like the TARDIS scanner, flat panes of something that wasn’t glass that held images inside them. The illusion of depth was so convincing that he had to touch one to reassure himself. He stepped across the narrow chamber and reached out hesitantly towards the image of a ball-shaped machine with spindly legs like an upturned spider. When his fingers brushed it he felt nothing but the smooth surface of the screen, but the image wiggled and expanded. Words began to roll across the pane; a moment later, a gentle woman’s voice read them aloud. “ _On October 4th 1957, the Soviet Union_ –”

Jamie backed away, feeling as if he’d done something he shouldn’t. He had a notion that maybe if he stopped paying attention the invisible woman would go away, and a conflicting notion that that was silly, because machines tended to keep going till you told them to stop.

At any rate, the others weren’t paying attention to him. They were gathered around the window beside the TARDIS, poking at the screen. “I don’t get it,” Ben was saying. “You just – tap it?”

“It’s a very simple interface,” said the Doctor. “You just – touch the images you want to know more about, and swipe to return.” He demonstrated as he spoke, sliding pictures about on the screen with his fingertips. “Really, children can do it.”

“Alright, rub it in why don’t you,” Ben muttered.

Polly seemed to have got it quicker. “Like this?” The images on this window were patterns of stars joined up with fine white lines. She tapped one and let the writing spill all over the screen. ‘ _The constellation Orion is visible_ ’ – “So this place is a sort of museum?”

“Not exactly.” The Doctor rubbed his ear thoughtfully. “It’s more like a – well, a viewing point on top of a hill. Or – oh! A visitor’s centre at a national monument.” He beamed to himself, pleased with his analogy.

“Oh, I see!” said Polly, delighted. “How marvellous.”

“So what’s the monument?” Ben poked at the screen, trying and failing to make Orion go away.

“No, it’s like this,” said Polly, demonstrating. “You’re not touching it for long enough.”

“The earth, I suppose,” said the Doctor. “There’ll be a viewing deck somewhere.” He looked to either side of himself, as if it might be hiding there. He looked up at the ceiling, scrutinising the angular light fittings. “Yes. Definitely earth. Late twenty-first or twenty-second century construction, I’d say, though judging by the lack of, ah, visitors it’s probably been up and about for quite a while.” He smiled to himself, pleased with his deduction, then frowned when he realised Ben and Polly were squabbling over the screen rather than listening.

“No, no, now you’re holding it too long,” said Polly. She batted Ben’s hand away. “Here, let me.”

“Alright, alright!” Ben snapped. “I’m not a kid, y’know.”

“It’s really quite simple,” said Polly in that patronising tone she used sometimes that made Jamie roll his eyes and Ben glare.

“Oh, don’t start that –”

“Now, now,” said the Doctor. “It doesn’t come easily to everyone, you know –”

They all seemed to have quite forgotten Jamie, hovering behind them. He looked up at the screen, which was flitting back and forth between constellations, and decided that if Ben couldn’t get the hang of it he didn’t stand a chance. Besides, the funny windows with their wiggling images and invisible talking women unnerved him. He needed – well, he really needed some fresh air, but he had a hunch he wasn’t going to get that anywhere nearby. The next best thing would be somewhere with no bright, disquieting screens glaring at him from all sides.

Without bothering to say goodbye, he turned and walked to the nearest door. He took a moment to peer up at the sign, but the writing on it meant nothing to him. There were arrows pointing both ways. He shrugged his shoulders and picked a direction at random.

He wandered down the tight, claustrophobic passage, following a design of arrows on the floor that he reasoned had to lead somewhere. He paused a moment to press his hand flat to the wall. It was humming, a faint vibration of distant workings. Whatever force held this place together, he guessed.

At the end of the passage was a door, and beside the door a red panel. With some trepidation he touched hand to it. It didn’t respond to his fingers. He pressed the palm of his hand to it, as the Doctor had, and the door ahead of him clunked open.

He stumbled into the chamber beyond, blinking, not quite able to make sense of what he was seeing. For a second he thought it was another screen like the ones in the other chamber, but no, it was a true window. It took up the whole opposite wall, curving outwards into the space beyond. 

Beyond the window – what was he _looking_ at? He saw a nonsense of green and blue and white, a curving shape that stretched across half the window. It made his eyes water. And beyond that there was – darkness, and faint stars. Space.

He stared; and suddenly the image resolved. It hit him with full force just what he was looking at, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He stepped forward, hugging himself. 

He rested his hands on the rail that ran below the window and leaned cautiously forward. The window curved outwards like a bubble, and so a foot or so below him there was a dizzying drop. He looked up quickly, looked down – up? – down at the earth. Clouds; the white was clouds, and he was looking at them from above. The blue was the sea, the green and brown land, but although he’d seen a map of the world he couldn’t make out any countries he recognised. 

But that was the _world_ , or at least a good chunk of it, and he was looking down on it like you might look down on a valley from the top of a hill. Mountain ranges like anthills, rivers like delicate blue threads, clouds like drifting dandelion fuzz, all of it so tiny and so incomprehensibly vast.

“Quite a view, eh?” The Doctor’s voice snatched him out of his confused reverie. He spun around, one hand resting on the rail, wordless. “You really mustn’t wander off like that,” he said, ambling across the room towards the railing.

“You said it was safe,” Jamie protested.

“Can’t be too careful,” said the Doctor. Jamie rolled his eyes and turned back to the mind-boggling view. “Hmm,” pondered the Doctor. “Yes, that’s certainly quite a view.”

Jamie rested his elbows on the rail, leaning on it heavily. “Don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

“It’s the earth,” said the Doctor in that patient tone he seemed to reserve for explaining things to Jamie. He never used it on Polly or Ben. Jamie wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or insulted.

Just now, insulted. He shot the Doctor a look. “I got _that_ far.” He squinted out at the earth. “Where’s that, down there?”

“Hmm.” The Doctor tilted his head and squinted. “Ah, I see. That’s the south pole.” He pointed at the whitish landmass at the uppermost end of the world. “And that sort of – hook – there,” his pointing finger traced the shape as he spoke, “that’s Cape Horn. The southern tip of the Americas.”

“Ohh,” said Jamie. He tilted his head, and suddenly it made sense. “It’s upside down.”

“Not really,” said the Doctor. “Putting north at the top is purely a matter of convention. Space, like most things, is relative.”

“Oh, aye,” said Jamie. His gaze was drawn, irresistibly, to the endless drop below his feet. He winced and pulled his eyes back up. “How far is that, d’you think?” He nodded at the window.

“Hmm.” The Doctor drummed his fingers on the rail. “Low earth orbit. About, hmm, two hundred and fifty miles up?”

If he’d thought knowing the distance would make it any easier, he was wrong. He couldn’t imagine looking at something two hundred and fifty miles away. It couldn’t make sense of how big it all was. He couldn’t think what to say. In the end, he settled for, “hell of a long way to fall.”

“Hmm.” The Doctor twisted his fingers together thoughtfully.

“Hmm?” Jamie echoed, puzzled.

“Well, you wouldn’t exactly _fall_ from here,” said the Doctor. “Or at least, not all the way to earth.”

“How’d you mean?” Jamie’s brow crinkled in confusion.

“It’s a matter of gravity, you see,” said the Doctor.

“Gravity?” Jamie echoed.

“Gravity,” the Doctor repeated. He fished about in his pocket and brought out a teaspoon. “Gravity.” He stretched out his hand and dropped the spoon. It clattered to the floor between Jamie and the Doctor. Jamie looked at it, on the floor. He looked at the Doctor, beaming like he’d done a clever trick. “Gravity,” he said firmly.

Jamie waited for an explanation. None was forthcoming. The Doctor was speaking in riddles, or else expected Jamie to know what he’d meant. “You’ve lost me,” he said.

“Oh, ah, gravity,” the Doctor ducked down to retrieve his spoon and tucked it safely into a pocket. “Gravity is the reason why things fall down.”

Jamie stared at him. It was one of the most bafflingly simple statements he’d ever heard. _Things fall down_ was the most basic of concepts, the sort of thing that made perfect, intuitive sense. You might as well ask why water was wet. “I never thought of there bein’ a reason for that,” he said doubtfully.

“Not many people do.” The Doctor steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips in deep thought. Thinking, Jamie realised after a moment, how to explain what was surely a difficult concept to someone as dull as Jamie. “You see, gravity is one of the fundamental forces that holds the universe together,” he began.

“And it makes things fall down?” Jamie interrupted.

“Not exactly,” said the Doctor. “It attracts objects together. Sort of pulls everything towards everything else.” He brought his hands slowly together. 

“Why does that make things fall down?”

“Down is relative,” said the Doctor vaguely. “Things aren’t pulled _down_ , they’re pulled towards the centre of the earth. The larger an object is, the greater its gravitational pull. The earth is the largest thing around, at least when you’re on it, so objects are pulled down towards it. Do you follow?”

Despite himself, Jamie found that he did. It made good sense. He had one of those dizzy moments when the world seemed to open up before him like a flower blooming, like when he’d stepped out onto the surface of the moon. He had a sudden urge to ask why _was_ water wet, which he quashed. “Aye,” he said slowly. “I think so.” A thought struck him. “I still dinnae understand why you cannae fall to earth from here.”

“Ah, yes,” said the Doctor. “Let me finish,” he said, although he’d given every impression of being finished. “You see, as you move further away from the earth, the pull of gravity becomes weaker. At this distance, there’s enough of a pull to hold this satellite, but not enough to drag it down to earth. So, you see, we’re – suspended.”

“Suspended?”

“Yes, suspended.” The Doctor rubbed his ear again. “In essence, I suppose, we are falling.”

“Eh?” Jamie blinked.

“This satellite is in orbit,” said the Doctor. “That means it’s falling around the earth – rather than _to_ the earth.” He retrieved his spoon from his pocket and demonstrated, twirling it in a slow circle around his fingers. “Do you understand?”

“I’m nae sure.” Jamie rubbed a hand over his mouth. “So that’s what would happen, if you went outside? You’d fall – forever?”

“In a sense,” said the Doctor. “Although you oughtn’t worry about that. If you were to go out there without a space suit, asphyxiation would be a much more pressing problem.”

Jamie wasn’t sure what asphyxiation meant, but it sounded nasty so he didn’t ask. At any rate, the idea of falling around and around the earth forever wasn’t helping the queasy feeling in his stomach any. He decided to change the subject, or at least shift it slightly. “Oh, aye,” he said. “Doctor?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s a satellite?”

“Well, you’re in one,” said the Doctor, sounding slightly amused. “It’s a sort of artificial moon,” he explained. 

Jamie considered that. “So the moon’s falling around the earth, too?” he said.

“Yes,” said the Doctor, smiling brightly, evidently pleased that Jamie was understanding. “Yes, the moon is in orbit around the earth, and the earth is in orbit around the sun.”

He said it so casually, and Jamie silently had another of those dizzy moments. He’d thought it was the other way around. He wondered if there was anything else he had all back to front. He didn’t dare ask. He didn’t dare admit that he hadn’t known the earth went around the sun. The Doctor had said it so lightly, like he expected Jamie to already know. 

“It’s a bit like a cosmic merry-go-around,” the Doctor went on.

Jamie nodded slowly. “What’s a merry-go-round?”

“Well – oh, never mind,” said the Doctor. “The point is, gravity is what keeps things orbiting each other instead of flying apart. Oh!” He brightened. “Now, you remember when we were on earth’s moon?”

“Aye?” said Jamie. As if he’d ever forget it.

“You felt lighter on the moon, didn’t you?” said the Doctor. “The moon is smaller than the earth, and so it has less of a gravitational pull, which means you weigh less.”

“But there’s as much of me as there always was,” said Jamie, confounded.

“That’s the difference between mass and weight,” said the Doctor. “There’s the same amount of _you_ , but less gravity pulling you down. Hence, you aren’t so heavy.”

“So you bounce?” said Jamie.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “Yes, you bounce.”

Jamie nodded thoughtfully. He was beginning to lose his grip on this, and it’d been fragile enough to begin with. He was tempted to claim he understood it all and give up, but the Doctor would know he was lying, and he had more burning questions besides. “Alright,” he said. “I’m with you so far, or else I think I am – but why do things fall down up here? On this wee moon.” He thumped his heels against the floor. “Should they not fall that way?” He nodded at the earth.

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “Now we get into the difficult part. The gravity on this station is artificial. Generated by a machine.”

Lord, the things they could do with machines. He thought of men building things that could bend the force that held the universe together to their will, and felt dizzy all over again. “Is that why it feels off?”

“Off?” The Doctor blinked.

“Off,” said Jamie, a touch less certain. Maybe he was imagining it. “It doesnae feel quite right. Like me balance is off.” He rolled his heels against the ground.

“Ah, you noticed that, did you?” said the Doctor. “Good lad. You can feel it in your ears, can’t you?” He hopped up and down a few times. “Hmm. It oughtn’t feel like that. Humans won’t perfect the technology for another fifty or sixty years. Dreadfully bulky. That’s what’s taking up most of the space on this station, I should think.” He nodded at the wall opposite the window – beyond which Jamie had felt something humming. “It takes a tremendous amount of energy.”

“Oh, aye,” said Jamie. He leaned upon the rail, staring down at the earth. The Doctor had a tendency to do that, to say _humans_ like he wasn’t one. Jamie hadn’t quite plucked up the courage to ask why. He considered asking now and getting it over with, but decided to put it off for another day.

The Doctor leaned upon the rail beside him. “I forget sometimes how new all of this is for you,” he said gently. “You _are_ alright, aren’t you?”

“Course I am,” Jamie bluffed.

“Because you can tell me if you aren’t,” said the Doctor. “Truly.”

“Och, I’m fine,” said Jamie. He stared out at the earth. The view had changed slightly, in the minutes they’d been standing there talking. “It’s just so big.”

“Hmm, yes,” said the Doctor. “Bigger than you can imagine, I’m afraid. A wise man once said,” he cleared his throat in preparation. “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, mind-bogglingly big it is.”

Jamie blinked at him. Somehow he’d been expecting the Doctor to say something grander or more distinguished. He wondered if he was missing a joke. “Was that you who said that?” he said.

“Eh?”

“The wise man,” said Jamie, “was that you, just now?”

The Doctor stared at him. “Oh you – I assure you, that’s a real quote!” he snapped. “A man by the name of Douglas Adams. Twentieth century earth. I really must try to meet him one of these days,” he said – half to himself, Jamie thought. “I believe it continues: you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts compared to space.”

It got odder and odder. “I can never tell whether you’re havin’ me on.”

“Oh, come, now,” said the Doctor. “I wouldn’t have you on. Why would I do that?”

Jamie shrugged. “It’d be easy,” he said. “I dinnae ken much of anything.”

“Well, exactly,” said the Doctor. “It’d be far too easy. Where would the fun be?”

Despite himself, Jamie began to laugh. He sagged against the railing, collapsing into giddy giggles. Giddy was the only word he could think of to describe how he felt. Giddy, from being spun around and around the earth.

Beside him, the Doctor was chuckling. “Really, though,” he said, sobering. “I wouldn’t do that to you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“What, because I’m nae clever enough to get it?” said Jamie.

“Oh, come, now.” The Doctor gave him a stern look. “Don’t put yourself down like that.”

Jamie grunted. He turned back to the view, propping himself against the rail, slipping back into his silent reverie of awe.

“Humbling, isn’t it?” The Doctor patted his hand softly where it sat upon the rail. His hand lingered atop Jamie’s, squeezing gently, a gesture that seemed to somehow go beyond simple comfort, but Jamie couldn’t put his finger on how or why.

They stood in comfortable, companionable silence, staring out at the view, the Doctor’s hand resting atop Jamie’s. After a few moments, his thumb began to move in a tight, gentle circle against the soft part of Jamie’s hand.

Jamie shifted, turning to face the Doctor, and found that the Doctor was already facing him. He had a curious expression on his face, fond and a touch sad, but at the same time Jamie had the sense that he was being sized up. The Doctor’s eyes flicked up and down his face. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. Jamie followed the motion with his eyes.

A wild urge struck him, and suddenly he was in the midst of another of the silent conflicts he’d been prone to lately. Only this time it was all back to front. His head was telling him to slip his hand out from beneath the Doctor’s, to back up and a step and come up with something light to say. But every raw instinct in his body was screaming at him that now would be a perfect moment to kiss the Doctor.

And where had _that_ come from. He didn’t know. The thought had struck him out of nowhere, like a lightning bolt. The slow, soft movement of the Doctor’s thumb against his skin suddenly felt shockingly intimate, setting butterflies fluttering in the pit of his stomach.

He wrestled inwardly, the rational part of him insisting that this was altogether wrong – but then again, he’d been wrong about so many things he’d never even bothered to question, who was to say he wasn’t wrong about this as well? And it _felt_ right. If the Doctor were a lassie he’d have gone ahead and done it by now. And why the hell _shouldn’t_ he? He was standing aboard an artificial moon two hundred and fifty miles up, falling all around the world. Why shouldn’t he do anything he wanted to do?

Jamie dipped his head forward, and hung there, suspended, waiting to see what the Doctor would do. He – didn’t do much of anything. His expression barely changed, but he wasn’t moving away. The butterflies in Jamie’s stomach were beating up a storm, now. The Doctor’s thumb had stilled. Just a little further. He steeled himself, and –

“Cor, look at that view!” Ben strode into the room, clapping his hands together – and they sprang apart, the Doctor’s hand sliding off his. Jamie reeled back, dazed. 

If Ben had noticed how close they’d been standing, he gave no sign of it. He marched straight to the rail and hopped up between them, whistling to himself. “So this is the main event, is it?”

“Aye, it’s quite a view.” Jamie rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, still giddy.

Polly trotted into the room behind Ben, and exclaimed in delight at the view. She rushed up to the railing. “Look at that! You can see the whole world from up here.”

“Well, not quite,” said the Doctor.

“Cape Horn,” Jamie supplied, nodding at the hook of land that was rolling away beneath them.

“Oh, it’s breath-taking,” said Polly.

“Hey, if we stand here long enough d’you think we’ll be able to see London?” said Ben.

“Probably not,” said the Doctor. “I don’t think the, ah, angle is right. But –” He went on, but Jamie only half-listened. He rested both hands atop the rail, staring out at the magnificent view. His stomach was still fizzing, and staring at the curious upside-down view of the earth only made it fizz more. The whole world was turned on its head – except it wasn’t, the Doctor had said. Space was relative. He wasn’t quite sure what that precisely that meant, ‘relative’, but more often than not it seemed to mean that some deeply-held truth was about to be overturned, and usually for the better.

Raising his hands from the rail, he hugged himself, staring up – down – up at the earth, gently falling through space – and he smiled.


End file.
